How Enzymes Work



Every second inside every living cell, thousands of chemical reactions are taking place. These reactions constitute the essential tasks of life such as metabolism, protein synthesis, cell renewal and growth. Learn how the proteins called enzymes work to maintain the rate of these reactions at a life-sustaining level.

Based on atomic structures from the PDB archive, observe the mechanism of aconitase, an enzyme of the citric acid cycle, to understand how enzymes utilize their amino acid residues to catalyze a reaction.

To learn more about enzymes, explore the educational resources on PDB-101 (http://pdb101.rcsb.org/browse/enzymes).

Story by: David S. Goodsell and Maria Voigt

Animation and Video Editing by: Maria Voigt

Narration by: Brian Hudson

Subtitles available in:
English
Catalan (translation by Marc Isbert)
Spanish (translation by Marc Isbert)
French (translation by Marie-Cécile Darmon)

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39 thoughts on “How Enzymes Work”

  1. Can really see how close life and non-life are, almost like one of those magic stories like Harriet's Hare, where some animals have Consciousness and the ability to talk and others don't.

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  2. This is great, but I wonder what it might be like if this process was explained via a more mechanical method… like a robot holding products and changing them. Proteins are proteins, but learning steps through easy to envision mechanical processes seems like it might help. Just a thought.

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  3. This was really cool.  Very clear and great and understandable animations.  More people need to see stuff like this to understand the absurdity of these vastly complex systems originating by random processes.

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  4. This an excellent animation… but the video itself is a little off in terms of scope. The intro and final statements are in the format of something you would show to children… but the contents are complex enough that it totally clashes with this format. If you are familiar with ANY of those reactions, then you already know what enzymes are… And if you don't know what enzymes are, you are going to be totally lost after 30 seconds. It is still good content though, even if the delivery is a little… wooden.

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  5. Bundle of thanks my sweetheart angel KD 😘
    My sweetheart angel Mera yakeen na ho to gazette sa rslt dekh lna mein kiu apko dhoka du
    Apko PTA ha cell and molecular biology mein mein kafi bemaar ho Gaya
    Baki two mene khd skip kiye the

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  6. Incredible. The physics of molecular biology, the complexity of evolution, the ingenuity of biologists to have worked all this out, the quality and accuracy of the computer model, the generosity of the uploader; all very impressive.

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  7. I'm brand new to biology, please explain how this information is knowable if its so small and happening so fast. Is it filmed under an electron microscope then slowed down?

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